


ice cream dates

by jackdawblue



Category: Battle Royale (Manga), Battle Royale - All Media Types, Battle Royale - Takami Koushun
Genre: F/F, dysfunctional is taken to a new level by our fave battle royale gay gals, some background yoshimi/yoji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackdawblue/pseuds/jackdawblue
Summary: “what do you fucking want from me? huh? a fairy-tale ending? ice cream dates? a big fucking wedding, us living happily ever after?”-in which hirono pines and mitsuko fails english class.
Relationships: Shimizu Hirono/Souma Mitsuko
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	ice cream dates

there’s a man’s ashes sleeping in the urn grave under their feet. mitsuko’s pumps are clean, white, almost glowing in the faint light of the street lamps. hirono’s were once white, too, but are now stained to grey by graveyard dirt from the number of nights they’ve spent here, either with yoshimi or just the two of them, waiting amongst the tall headstones. tonight, it’s cold for september, way past nine pm. hirono is shifting from foot to foot. goosebumps spreads down her arms and bare thighs and she shivers.

“quit moving,” mitsuko hisses.

“fuck you, i’m cold,” hirono snaps back. “you didn’t say the guys were going to be late.”

mitsuko doesn’t crack. she’s too good for that, hirono knows, but there’s a tightening at the corner of her mouth. she’s cold too. “they said to meet at nine, okay, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“seems like yoshimi had the right idea, staying home and cosy with her boyfriend.” hirono snorts, tracing circles in the dust beneath her feet. she’s disparaging as she says, “young love.”

“you’ve never been in love?”

hirono turns. “you have?”

mitsuko scoffs. “no, of course not.” a pause in which their breath forms twin silver plumes issued from lipstick-smeared mouths. “men are fucking assholes, anyway.”

-

hirono hands the pen she’d borrowed for the class back to yoshimi. “thanks.” she forgot her entire pencil case this morning, having left it on mitsuko’s dining room table last night along with her chemistry homework for mitsuko to copy. mitsuko had omitted to bring either of them to school, giving hirono a detention at lunch for that missing homework and forcing her to scrounge a pen from yoshimi.

yoshimi flips her hair over her shoulder. “my pleasure.”

_oops_.

“your pleasure?” mitsuko spits, raising an eyebrow. hirono’s blood starts to form preemptive crystals from the frost in those syllables. “well, i sure _am_ glad that you’re enjoying yourself in our company. maybe you should have done that on saturday night, when hirono and i were freezing our tits off waiting for those boys who never showed."

“i was with yoji,” yoshimi murmurs, eyes fixed on her shoes.

“your boy toy?” mitsuko shoots hirono a look. hirono meets that thick, heavy gaze and her heart thud-thuds in her ears with its intensity, the same way that it did when mitsuko draped her jacket over hirono’s goose-bumped shoulders on saturday as they walked home after it had become apparent that the boys weren’t coming. _you need it more than i do, you skinny bitch._ “well, i hope he’s worth it.”

yoshimi stuffs her pencil case into her bag without a word. it crumples her latest test, a red 48% scrawled across the top, and hirono knows that she’ll get a text from yoshimi later that night, when her father has screamed himself hoarse at her and when she is crying through her thick eye makeup, asking hirono to help her with maths. hirono has something of a knack for maths, for the neat rules of algebra and calculus. maybe she’ll take it at university, if she passes the entrance exams.

they’ve left the classroom when hirono realises that yoshimi hasn’t said anything. the hem of mitsuko’s skirt swings across the backs of her thighs, carefree, and yoshimi’s hands are pale, shaking in the pockets of her against-regulations hoodie. hirono reties her ponytail.

-

_help me with my english hmwk_

_hey_

_hirono_

_bitch help me_

\- mitsuko

hirono sighs. the last text came in twenty minutes ago and she’s only just looked at her phone - mitsuko will be royally pissed when hirono calls. it’ll be beautiful, that surge of emotion, but hirono needs her breath to speak.

sure enough, when the line connects, mitsuko huffs and swears. “fucking hell, hirono, what took you so long?”

a moment in which hirono's ribs threaten to snap. “i was doing that biology essay,” she replies. voice steady.

mitsuko scoffs. “such a goody two-shoes, aren’t you?”

hirono twirls her pencil around her fingers. it’s something she picked up from mitsuko at the start of high school, spinning her writing implement around her fingers in semicircles, snapping it against her knuckles. it grounds her. “some of us actually want to go to university, you know.”

“so why bother coming out with me? why not just stay at home and study like a good little girl?”

hirono bites her tongue and only half of the truth comes out - “i like spending time with you.” _you’re the closest thing i’ve ever felt to love._

mitsuko’s _hmph_ sounds at least faintly pleased. “better than yoshimi, at any rate. god, i thought she was going to fucking cry today when i mentioned yoji.”

“i think she really likes him, you know.”

mitsuko actually laughs. she must be tired - she hasn’t torn hirono to shreds for backing yoshimi. “love isn’t good for anything, hirono.”

the diagrams of cellular respiration on hirono's desk spin before her eyes. “i never said she loved him.”

“well. life advice, honey: it’s an illusion. you choose who you pretend to love and you choose who you kill."

there is a scream lodged between the vertebrae of hirono's neck. “you got experience with both, huh, mitsu?”

mitsuko hangs up. she doesn’t text hirono back, either. she’s probably decided not to do the english assignment after all.

-

“hey, little sis?”

hirono’s sister pokes her head out of her bedroom.

“just warning you, yoshimi and mitsu are coming over tonight.”

her sister cocks her head. it makes her twin plaits sway and it’s endearing. her little sister is the first exception to hirono’s (crumbling) rule against sentimentality. “yoshimi’s the one with the nice boyfriend, right?”

hirono smiles. “yeah. but don’t tell mitsu that.”

“why? does she like him too?”

“mitsu doesn’t like anyone,” hirono finds herself saying. “not like that, anyway.” she can feel her sister looking at her. "i'm going downstairs."

she doesn’t really feel it when her fingers, damp from washing lettuce for a salad, freeze to the ready-made pizzas as she removes them from their packaging, scrapes the ice crystals into the sink. she doesn’t really feel it when she accidentally nicks her finger on the knife she’s using to chop tomatoes. she still feels numb inside from the hours spent cauterising edges of her chest at midnight because, _remember_ , mitsuko doesn’t love anyone. will never love anyone. the second exception to hirono’s (withering) rule against sentimentality will never reciprocate. she won’t.

yoshimi has the grace to ring the doorbell so that hirono can fetch herself a plaster, let yoshimi in and forget to apologise for the mess like her mother always nags her to. mitsuko walks in as if she owns the place, waves to hirono’s little sister who’s peeking from the top of the stairs, and proceeds to complain about hirono’s choice of pizzas.

“pepperoni? really? are you trying to put on weight or something?” she pinches hirono’s side. “maybe you should. you’re so fucking skinny.”

yoshimi fiddles with a strand of her hair, leaning against the kitchen table as hirono reties her ponytail, turns to face mitsuko. “i think you mean i’m gorgeous, honey,” she says.

and - this is the thing that hirono never expected - it catches mitsuko off guard. a silence stretches as hirono perfects her ponytail, yoshimi still fiddling with her hair as she leans against the kitchen table, and mitsuko’s mouth is tight, short, white at the corners. hirono feels bold on that whiteness, that bloodlessness. it’s good to know that she’s capable of inducing that in mitsuko, the girl who makes her blood thump through her veins at two am when she’s slaving over her maths homework and gets a text from sender: mitsu.

finally, mitsuko says, “of course you’re beautiful,” as if through a mouthful of wood.

hirono’s cauterisation hasn’t worked - she can feel warm blood tumbling through the cavern of her abdomen and she pretends that her eyes are watering from the heat of the oven as she checks on the pizzas.

-

the boys are waiting for them in the graveyard this time. their bottles of beer clank against one another in the rustling carrier bags swinging from their palms, the only part of them that’s moving save for their eyes up, up hirono’s legs. mitsuko smiles and hirono returns it, allows mitsuko to sling an arm around her waist. her hopefulness is back, retrieved from the depths of her gut by mitsuko’s lips brushing the shell of her ear as she whispers to hirono in class, by the appreciative flicker of mitsuko’s eyes over hirono’s new skirt, the way that she took hirono’s hand as they sat in a café to work on mitsuko’s english assignment (she decided she couldn’t afford to fail another class). hirono's buoyant, bobbing just below the surface, and she’s ready to drown again in the made-up girl next to her.

“looking good,” one of the boys says.

“oh?” mitsuko’s lips are a perfect circle. infinite. “tell me more.”

they do. hirono doesn’t bother to correct them when they’re wrong - they say that mitsuko loves them. they say that hirono is beautiful. but when one grabs hirono’s wrist, tugs her towards the shadows where the street lamps grow dim, the paper money in his hand scratches against her skin but she pretends, she pretends, and as his lips touch the corner of her jaw, she can almost pretend that he’s mitsuko if she closes her eyes.

-

“that’s a good hickey.”

“you wanna make a better one?”

mitsuko looks up too sharply. “what did you just say?”

“don’t fucking play dumb, you bitch,” hirono snaps. she’s wound up, fed up and she’s been ready to snap for too long. she’s fed up of kissing boys who don’t know her name. she’s tired of her heart pounding against her ribs until she thinks they’re going to break open like a wicker casket. and finally, here in her bedroom, with mitsuko stretched out next to her on her own bed, no makeup and hair damp from a shower, she gives in. “i said make me a better hickey.”

mitsuko looks at her. “you don’t mean that.”

“i fucking do and you fucking know it.”

mitsuko’s intake of breath is sharp, too sharp, and so is the tightening of her nails in the back of hirono’s hand. “alright.”

-

“god, do you collect hickeys or something?”

“shut up, yoshimi.”

“really, though! those are some good ones!”

“would you like a megaphone? i don’t think some of the girls at the front heard you,” hirono hisses. a few of the braver girls have turned around - yukie, noriko - and soon they’ll be giggling. seventeen years old and they haven’t matured past the playground.

yoshimi has the decency to look abashed. “just saying. they’re impressive.”

the bell rings and mitsuko takes the opportunity to sit on hirono’s desk, legs folded delicately, short skirt riding up. hirono swallows. “say what, yoshimi?” mitsuko asks.

“hirono’s got some good hickeys,” she says, gesturing to where hirono has her hoodie pulled up over her neck. she’s regretting this morning's decision not to cover them with foundation. she’d thought it would piss mitsuko off.

mitsuko leans close, close, _too_ close as she peels hirono’s hand away to inspect them. she pulls back with a smirk. “not bad, hirono, not bad.”

hirono looks at her hand. mitsuko hasn’t let go of it.

-

“nice skirt,” mitsuko says, raising an eyebrow. “nice.”

hirono grins. _at last._ “you like what you see, mitsu?”

it’s dark and hirono wishes it weren’t. she wants to know if mitsuko is blushing right now, standing amidst the darkness of the headstones, waiting for boys with drugs and alcohol and wandering hands.

and then - “i’ve always thought you were pretty, hirono.”

the boys arrive, clanking beer bottles together, and hirono has to tear her gaze away from mitsuko’s face.

-

smoking stolen cigarettes at the edge of the park, hirono lets her skirt slide too far up her legs to be decent. yoshimi has ditched them yet again for a cinema date with yoji and mitsuko had been so pissed that she nearly got herself caught lifting two packets of cigarettes in her bra. now they’re smoking that success. the bitterness curls between hirono’s teeth and she blows it out between glossed lips before it can slip down her throat. she’s too good at this to cough any more.

“what does she see in him?” mitsuko says.

hirono takes another drag and stubs out her cigarette. she lights another one from the end of mitsuko’s, eyes flickering into mitsuko’s, dark and lined and deep. her heart thuds behind her ribs. “yoji?”

“who else am i talking about?”

hirono shrugs. “maybe he makes her feel like she’s worth something.”

“are you having a fucking go at me?”

“no,” hirono snaps. “i’m just saying that you’ve never exactly made her feel valued.”

mitsuko stares at her with her lined eyes. “you’re a cunt, hirono.”

“yeah, but so are you.”

mitsuko stubs out her cigarette on hirono’s exposed thigh and leaves her gasping.

-

“what’s that on your leg?”

_shit._ observant little sisters.

“it’s nothing.”

her sister raises her eyebrow and hirono wonders when she got so confident, so bold. she stands as tall as hirono now, despite only being fifteen to hirono’s seventeen, and she’s top of her classes in english, literature and history, and she applies her eyeliner with a hand far steadier than hirono’s ever was at fifteen. “that’s not nothing. that’s definitely something.”

“trust me, it’s nothing. i had a mishap in the kitchen.”

her sister snorts. “as if.” then she looks hirono dead in the eye. “it looks like a cigarette burn.”

hirono glances towards the door. “don’t tell mum.”

“was it mitsuko?”

hirono doesn’t answer, shrugging her coat. she’s about to leave when her sister says, “you must really love her if you’ll let her do that to you.”

the air in hirono’s lungs turns to water to stone. she can’t breathe. “what the _fuck_ did you just say?”

her sister doesn’t even remark on her profanity, even though hirono makes a rule never to swear in front of her. her sister’s expression is soft as she says, “you love her, don’t you?”

“you can’t tell anyone. ever. no one. not mum, not dad. none of your friends, no one at school, not even -“ she’s babbling, she knows, and she’s terrified, so, so terrified because if even her little sister can see it, the one who sees hirono with mitsuko once every few weeks, it must be blindingly obvious.

but her sister cuts her off. “it’s not obvious. it’s in how much you give her. how much time you give her.”

hirono feels light-headed with fear. “don’t you dare tell anyone.” and then she’s gone, slamming the door behind her as every nerve in her body screams and batters against the cage of her skin.

-

  
“mitsu. mitsu. god, mitsu, just _stop!_ _”_

mitsuko stops. “what, hirono?” she won’t look at hirono.

hirono’s heart is slamming into her chest, like the baby bird her sister inadvertently saved years ago. hirono’s first day of senior high school, walking home. it was the day hirono had first met mitsuko. it was a sweltering tokyo day - that’s why she was flushed, clearly. and the bird had thrown itself out of the nest and miraculously landed in her sister’s outstretched hands - she’d been talking about her new classmates, gesticulating wildly. they’d been shocked, then in awe, then panicked as they felt its beating heart and wings against their fingers. trembling, panicking, furious to break free.

she takes a deep breath. “are we really just going to not talk about this?”

mitsuko still doesn’t turn around. “what are we talking about?”

“this, mitsu. _everything_. the cigarette burn -”

“i didn’t even fucking touch you,” mitsuko snaps.

“the kissing. the looks. the -“

mitsuko whirls around. her dark hair spins around her like a switchblade, thick with rain, slashing across her neck in a thick black brushstroke. she's wearing the jacket she always gives hirono. “what do you fucking want from me? huh? a fairy-tale ending? ice cream dates? a big fucking wedding, us living happily ever after?”

_tap tap_ against hirono’s ribs.mitsuko is staring at hirono’s mouth with a fire hirono’s never seen before. “have you fucking _met_ me? do you really think that’s where i’m headed? and you - you wouldn’t have the fucking _nerve_ to touch me if i didn’t start it, so how do you even - _mmph!_ “

hirono’s heart is _tap-tap-tap_ ping right out of her chest as she rushes forwards. her ribs are bruising. her fingers are blistering where they tangle in mitsuko’s hair, brush against her neck. and her mouth is on fire where she’s kissing mitsuko, kissing her from years and years ago. kissing her from now, in plain daylight, in full view of the street. in full heart.

and mitsuko is kissing her _back,_ god, _god._ her fingers dig into hirono’s _skinny bitch_ waist, desperately hard, desperately warm. grounding. fingers that rolled hirono her first joint, that tug hirono’s ponytail back _hard_ when she looks like she’s going to argue with mitsuko, fingers that burnt hirono with a cigarette. fingers that link with hers when she helps mitsuko to get a question right, fingers that graze hers when mitsuko passes her a bottle of beer, fingers that play with her hair at two in the morning when they can’t sleep. fingers that hold hers when she's shaking and alone. fingers that set hirono on fire. fingers that are creeping -

“not _here,_ oh my god” hirono gasps.

mitsuko grabs her hand and they run, splashing through the puddles, sprinting through the dark twilight. fingers linked, tugging each other every which way to avoid the lampposts, the tiny old ladies walking tiny old dogs, the shocked face of a classmate braving the weather. rain falls on hirono’s lips like birds’ feathers. and her heart laughs, sings, _tap tap taps._

-

_hirono_

_hey_

_hirono_

_STOP IGNORING ME BECAUSE I MADE YOU COME_

_TWICE_

\- mitsuko

_jesus CHRIST mitsu_

_what’s up_

\- hirono

_i lied about ice cream. meet you in five? x_

\- mitsuko

**Author's Note:**

> i've never been able to read hirono as anything other than hopelessly in love with mitsuko!!! battle royale needs more wlw fics!!! here i am at your service!!!
> 
> \+ hirono is def a clueless gay gal, fight me on this  
> ++ there's also some rly cute bts pics from shooting the movie of anna nagata & kou shibasaki lol  
> +++ not sure how i feel abt the ending but lmk!!
> 
> ✩ im shameless BUT if you've enjoyed reading my work, please consider supporting me via [my ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/jackdawblue)! ✩


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